United States v. Paul A. RussellUnited States v. Paul A. Russell
Lead Opinion
Thе defendant, a resident alien, entered a guilty plea after negotiations with the United States Attorney. When deportation proceedings based on the resulting conviction were later initiated against the defendant, he moved under
I. Background
Paul Russell, a twenty-three year old citizen of Jamaica, has been a legal resident of the United States for eight years. On March 26, 1981, he was driving a car when it was stopped by policemen. A co-defendant, Grey, was riding in the front passenger seat. On the car’s front floor, at Grey’s feet, the police discovered a bag containing approximately one pound of marijuana. The police also seized a nine millimeter
An indictment filed against Russеll and Grey in April 1981 contained four counts. Counts I and II charged Russell and Grey with possession of marijuana, and possession with intent to distribute. Counts III and IV charged Russell alone with carrying a handgun without a license, and possession of a prohibited weapon.
After bargaining with the United States Attorney, Russell agreed to plead guilty to both misdemeanor counts and the gоvernment agreed not to allocate against him at sentencing. The plea bargaining was complicated, however, by the fact that Russell denied possession or knowledge of the handgun and thus protested his innocence to the third count of the indictment. Although the police officers seemed prepared to testify that the gun was recovered from Russell’s person, Russell contended that the gun was hidden in the bag containing marijuana and that he did not know about thе gun until the police discovered it.
Russell therefore tendered his plea under the doctrine of North Carolina v. Alford,
In September 1981, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) instituted deportation proceedings against Russell under
The district court denied Russell’s motion without a hearing. In a brief memorandum order, the district court stated:
Defendant has moved to withdraw his plea of guilty. He claims that neither the Court nor the prosecutor advised him that he might be deported on account of committing the crimes of which he stands convicted. The possibility of deportation is not a “direсt” consequence of his conviction, anymore than would be the impact of conviction upon his credit rating, employment prospects or the sentence he might receive if he is again convicted of some crime. See United States v. Sambro,454 F.2d 918 , 922 (D.C.Cir.1971).
Order, October 15, 1981.
II. The Legal Setting
A motion to withdraw a plea of guilty or of nolo contendere may be made only before sentence is imposed or imposition of sentence is suspended; but to correct manifest injustice the court after sentence may set aside the judgment of conviction and permit the defеndant to withdraw his plea.
Certain consequences of a guilty plea are “collateral” rather than direct,
however, and need not be explained to the defendant in order to ensure that the plea is voluntary.
It has become well settled, however, that
As a result, it has frequently been held that defendants are not entitled to withdraw pleas under
[Ejven yet he has not alleged that he has any valid defense to the crime charged in the count to which he pleaded guilty.... [A] plea of guilty is a confession in open court as to the facts alleged: in the instant case appellant Sambro has made such a confession, has said nothing whatever to repudiate it, nor has he claimed any legal defense to the charge.
Id. at 921-22. Second, “[w]e also observe that the Government was willing to accept a plea to one of the heroin, not marijuana, counts of the 12-count indictment, thus evidencing some confidence in the strength of its case if the matter came to trial.” Id. at 921. Finally, Sambro’s apparent failure to consider the possibility of deportation was not attributable to any misrepresentation by the prosecution or thе trial court. Id. at 923; see Briscoe v. United States,
In summary, it is possible to identify several considerations that should guide district court exercise of discretion under
Judged by the foregoing standards, we hold that the trial court abused its discretion in denying Russell’s
Unlike the defendants in Sambro, Parrino, and Cordero v. United States,
In short, Russell’s
In the instant case, however, we do not remand Russell’s motion for consideration by the district court in light of the standards appropriate under
THE COURT: The reason here is that the defendant has an opportunity to minimize the hazard to his liberty.
*41 DEFENSE COUNSEL: That’s correct, Your Honor.
PROSECUTOR: There is one additional reason, Your Honor. We haven’t explored it thoroughly, but it would appear that if Mr. Russell were convicted under the felony count, marijuana again, that he might be subject to deportation, which would not be the case if he took the misdemeanor—
THE COURT: Let’s hear the matter, and you remind me if I do agree to accept the plea and make the findings.
Plea Tr. at 11 (emphasis added).
As discussed above,
In our view, the comments of the Assistant United States Attorney during Russell’s plea proceedings were a clear misstatement of the law; accordingly, Russell’s plea cannot be deemed voluntary under
Conclusion
The risks posed by the continued and widespread use of plea bargaining to the constitutional right of trial by jury have long been obvious, and a source of constant tension in our jurisprudence.
We reach this holding, of course, because the prosecution chose to speak, and spoke incorrectly. Had the government stood mute this would be a more difficult case. It is extremely troublesome that deportation has never been considered a direct consequence of guilty pleas of the sort that must be brought to the defendant’s attention before his plea may be considered voluntary under
Assuming a defendant who does not realize he faces automatic deportation can “voluntarily” waive thе right to trial by jury and enter a guilty plea, it is nevertheless clear that such a defendant has a compelling reason for seeking to stand trial when all the consequences of his plea become known. The disposition of
It is so ordered.
. The D.C.Code prohibits possession of certain “prohibited weapons,” including machine guns.
. This section provides that aliens “shall, upon the order of the Attorney General, be deported,” if they are “convicted of two crimes involving moral turpitude . . . regardless of whether confined therefor and regardless of whether the convictions were in a single trial,” or a single conviction under “any law or regulation relating to the illicit possession of or traffic in narcotic drugs or marihuana,”
. See, e.g., United States v. Crowley,
.
. Although Russell submitted a factual plea to the marijuana count, admitting that he knew the bag contained marijuana, he also contended that he and Grey were transporting it on behalf of other parties and were to deliver it to a particular destination. Russell’s counsel suggested that “the bag was handed to Mr. Grey and put under the seat by him,” Plea Tr. at 18, and at trial Russell might have argued that these facts were not inсonsistent with his innocence. See generally United States v. Pardo,
. We do not believe this holding can possibly “result in a mass exodus from the federal penitentiaries,” United States v. Cariola,
. The government’s post-argument request for a remand is based on United States v. Briscoe,
Concurrence Opinion
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I agree with most of Judge Mikva’s well considered opinion, including the conclusion that if the prosecution misled appellant with respect to the deportation consequences of his plea, the plea should be set aside in the interest of justice.
While it may be inferred from the statement of the Assistant United States Attorney when the plea was entered that appellant was misled, in view of the ambiguous nature of the comment, I would remand to the district court for further consideration, as was done in United States v. Briscoe,
In a supplemental memorandum filed with the transcript of the proceedings, Government counsel requested a remand similar to that in Briscoe, stating that the Government expected to “demonstrate that appellant was fully aware of the possibility of deportation as a consequence of his plea, and that the prosecutor made no representations regarding the collateral consequence in order to induce him to plead guilty.” Under the circumstances I would give both parties an opportunity to present additional evidence at a hearing on remand.